Paradise Diamond King, Fancy Laube, and Palmer

[TATE]

The Paradise is a Diamond King, Burton Spain Blank. I bought it from the original owner who purchased the cue new in 1966. I really liked the veneer colors.

This Palmer Model 2 from the 1st catalog is rare because it has a four point Wico blank. This is an exceptional cue. It's one of the few Palmers you will ever see with a ring in front of the wrap. Palmer liked the Wico blanks but they discontinued using them because they were concerned the vinyl "veneers" would not hold up over time. They seem to have held up just fine. The butt also has the vinyl veneers.

This Eddie Laube was just redone by Scot Sherbine who did a fantastic job. Eddie built these 5 veneer blanks himself. These cues are built like a tank. The ebony is jet black. It's hard to find ebony like this anymore. There is a lot of detail in this cue, for example, the dots at the end of the points are notched to show the point.

The last cue is a seldom seen Palmer Pete Margo #10, the Silencer that was found right here on A-Z from Vass (GreenEyesOcean). Scot also did this cue and it is flat beautiful, tons of detail. This cue has an interesting history. There were only a handful of these cues ever built.

Chris

 

[Fast Lenny]

I like the 2nd cue,is the butt of the cue beveled?I always wanted an old style cue with a beveled butt,i dont know if many or any cuemakers will do this.

 

[TATE]

I like the 2nd cue,is the butt of the cue beveled?I always wanted an old style cue with a beveled butt,i dont know if many or any cuemakers will do this.

Yes, it's beveled Lenny. Many cue makers will do this and there are some very nice customs with this detail in both mother of pearl and ivory.

Chris

 

[guycrunch]

chris, those are four fantastic cues. and the idea that you know the history of some of these cues is great. keep up the good job!

guy

 

[Hersheybarbilli]

Chris,

You are surely "The King Of Cues".

This post and your other two are very solid. Thanks for sharing the knowledge.

Bill

 

[Fast Lenny]

Yes, it's beveled Lenny. Many cue makers will do this and there are some very nice customs with this detail in both mother of pearl and ivory.

Chris

Most people dont realize that the beveled butt was not just for looks bu they actually played with this part of the cue a long time ago.

 

[ChrisOnline]

Most people dont realize that the beveled butt was not just for looks bu they actually played with this part of the cue a long time ago.

didnt they use that for farther away shots where if they pressed the beveled section flatt to the table it would raise the tip up to about center ball and that way they just have to push the whole cue forward to make the shot?

atleast thats what i understand it to be used for..
chris

 

[cuenut]

I don't know how they used it, but the bevel really accentuates a cue with such classic design elements.

Chris, you suck!! I think you have entirely too many historical cues for one person, and need to let a few go. How about the Paradise? I'd be happy to take that old thing off your hands? I guess I could stomach the Laube too. I tried prying the Laube's from Greg Howard when he had two, but they were gone before I could turn my head.

Pretty soon you will be able to open up a small museum.

 

[DJKeys]

These cues are beautiful. I once had a brunswick cue in about 1973 that had a beveled butt like that, just beveled, but not MOP. But, I gave up pool for a long time at that point, sold that cue and wish I didn't.

What a fabulous collection!

 

[alstl]

Nice cues. I saw a Burton Spain yesterday, a local man in his 80's was playing 3 cushion billiards with it, he said Spain made it for him and he has two shafts for it. Nice looking cue.

 

[Fast Lenny]

didnt they use that for farther away shots where if they pressed the beveled section flatt to the table it would raise the tip up to about center ball and that way they just have to push the whole cue forward to make the shot?

atleast thats what i understand it to be used for..
chris

They actually hit the cue ball with the beveled end of the cue and made shots with it like that,i imagine they were soft close shots.

 

[JimBo]

didnt they use that for farther away shots where if they pressed the beveled section flatt to the table it would raise the tip up to about center ball and that way they just have to push the whole cue forward to make the shot?

atleast thats what i understand it to be used for..
chris

I think you have this wrong, I think they used the butt end to hit the cueball and the flat part was laid flat on the table, I always heard it was a common thing for snooker in the ole days, but who knows maybe they barrowed it from pool???

Jim <---To young to break out the mace

 

[Double-Dave]

Nice collection Chris!
About the beveled part. I've heard three explanations, first one is:
Back in the day the snooker players didn't have a rest or an extension. They used their opponent's cue as a rest, placing the tip on the rail of the table and the beveled part on the bed, preventing the cue from rolling away. Don't know about this one.
Second one is: They used the back-end of the cue for when they couldn't reach a shot with a normal bridge, lifting the tip a few inches, again the beveled part preventing the cue from rolling away. I also heard old snooker cues had a leather pad instead of a bumper for this reason.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Third one is: Way back when there were no leather tips being used yet. The cue was held backwards all the time. When the leather tip came into the playing field, it was installed on the bottom (sharper,lighter) end of the cue. Players had to decide before the match which end of the cue to use. Obviously within a short while everyone was using the leather-tip instead of the wood block.
Also sounds kinda reasonable. I'll go with number two.

 

[spanky981]

cues

I thought the Paradise 'Diamond King" is the cue that Mark K. owns and is in the blue book... It has a bunch of ivory inlays in sleeve to look like a king and it has alot more inlays..

Mike

 

[Boro Nut]

I'll go with number two.

Should have gone for number three. It's a remnant of the mace, which was used to shove balls/discs around the playing surface, much like deck quoits. And snooker is a relativley recent game. The mace/cue transition happened well before snooker arrived.

Boro Nut

 

[classiccues]

I thought the Paradise 'Diamond King" is the cue that Mark K. owns and is in the blue book... It has a bunch of ivory inlays in sleeve to look like a king and it has alot more inlays..

Mike

Mike,
Paradise's standard Diamond King ala his "brochure" is similar to Chris' cue. When he had special orders for DK's, from "special" customers it got the champions treatment. Which amounted to a heavily inlaid butt sleeve, instead of the rings and larger window.

http://www.classiccues.com/graphics/mark_collection/paradise_pic_hi.jpg

The second and third cues are Diamond Kings. The second cue was for Eddie Taylor and had the champions pattern. The one thing about Paradise was he wasn't very consistent. Notice the reverse nature of the butt sleeves in the first two cues. Plus his inlays were probably the most off kilter of any cuemaker.

JV